Jessica Benjamin

The question of woman’s desire actually runs parallel to the question of power. We have often had... more The question of woman’s desire actually runs parallel to the question of power. We have often had cause to wonder whether the feminist focus on personal life, and for that matter the preoccupation with inner life that characterizes psychoanalysis, is fated to surrender the great issues of power. That would mean that the revaluation of things feminine in fact perpetuates the split between transcendence and immanence that Simone de Beauvoir saw as the great divide between the sexes. And yet, the challenge to this kind of split may be the greatest theoretical insight that feminism has to offer. Feminist thought is caught between three tasks: to redeem what has been devalued in women’s domain, to conquer the territory that has been reserved to men, and to resolve and transcend the opposition between these spheres by reformulating the relationship between them. The structural tension between male and female categories and the difficulty of reformulating it are as pertinent to the problems of sexuality as to those of politics.

“Moving Beyond Violence:”

Breaking Intergenerational Cycles of Repetition, 2016

Tilting Back Toward Development: Response to Steven Cooper’s “Donald Winnicott and Stephen Mitchell’s Developmental Tilt Hypothesis Reconsidered”

Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2021

ABSTRACT In this commentary on Steven Cooper’s paper (this issue), the author agrees with his exp... more ABSTRACT In this commentary on Steven Cooper’s paper (this issue), the author agrees with his exposition and discussion of the issues attendant on Stephen Mitchell’s theory of the developmental tilt, in particular with his proposal that relational analysis needs to pay more attention to Winnicott’s contributions. In reviewing Mitchell’s thesis we find a problematic either/or regarding the clinical value of developmental focus on infancy and early childhood, which becomes apparent in his own case illustrations. Taking up Cooper’s critique of Mitchell’s notion that the maternal figure “simply” provides, the question of the analyst’s non-cognitive contributions arises. Supporting Cooper’s effort to revalue those innovative moves this author adds an illustration from Winnicott’s Piggle and contrasts Winnicott’s playful stance with the rationalism of Mitchell’s early work. The category “for or against” drive theory seems to have too narrowly shaped Mitchell’s approach to older theories, and to have bypassed Winnicott’s radical innovations. But she also notes Mitchell’s course correction in his later work, his reconsideration of play under the influence of Loewald’s integration of new object relations perspective with old Freudian concepts, which led him to change his stance toward development.